London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds (Outside Australian High Commission in London)

On 8th December 2017, the eve of the Kimberley Process Plenary Meeting in Brisbane, Inminds human rights group held a vigil outside the Australian High Commission in London to ask Australia to fulfil its duty as chair of the Kimberley Process, to stop ignoring the human suffering bankrolled by the trade in cut and polished blood diamonds by rogue regimes like Israel.

The Kimberley Process is a self-regulatory process set up to prevent the trade in conflict diamonds that fund human rights violations. But the Kimberley Process’s narrow definition of a “conflict diamond” as "rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance armed conflicts aimed at undermining legitimate governments" excludes cut and polished diamonds, and excludes governments using diamonds to finance human rights abuses. Also, since the Kimberley Process is self-regulated, it has no independent accountability or power.

Inminds chair Abbas Ali said "The Kimberley process is a failure. It gives a green light to rogue regimes like Israel to freely trade in blood diamonds to bankroll slaughter in Gaza, and war crimes against the Palestinian people. We are here to demand Australia, as chair of the Kimberley Process, not turn a blind eye to this hypocrisy. We demand the Kimberley Process stand up to Israel and scrap the castrated definition of "conflict diamond" imposed on it by the Israeli Diamond Bourse!"

London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds (Outside Australian High Commission in London)

London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds (Outside Australian High Commission in London)

London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds(Outside Australian High Commission in London)

London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds(Outside Australian High Commission in London)

ISRAEL - A SERIAL HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSER

Israel is an apartheid state, Palestinians are oppressed under a system of racist laws which the UN describes as "an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole."

Over 2 million Gazaans are imprisoned under an illegal 10 year Israeli land, sea and air blockade. Over half of the population of Gaza is children under the age of 15 years old. Gaza has been described as a children's concentration camp.

Documents from Israel's defence ministry revealed that Israel uses a meticulously calculated cold-blooded calorie count to limit food entering Gaza to enforce a starvation diet on the children of Gaza where they are always starving but not quiet dead from starvation.

Oxfam reports that 96% of fresh water in Gaza is unfit for human consumption; and the United Nations reports that 72% of the households are food insecure, that by 2020 Gaza will become uninhabitable.

All these human rights abuses are bankrolled by Israel's diamond industry.

ISRAEL - HOW BLOOD DIAMONDS FUND ITS WAR CRIMES

Israel is one of the world’s leading producers of cut & polished diamonds. It imports rough diamonds, more than doubles their value by cutting & polishing, and exports them globally via hubs in London, Antwerp, HK, NY & Mumbai. Last year, in 2016, Israel's net export of diamonds was worth $9 billion, making it Israel's #1 industry by far with a 26% share of Israel's manufacturing exports - more than the combined exports of Israel's next top two industries - electronics and pharmaceuticals.

Evidence given at the Russell Tribunal in November 2010 by the Israeli economist Shir Hever revealed that "Overall the Israeli diamond industry contributes about $1 billion annually to the Israeli military and security industries". Shir Hever added "every time somebody buys a diamond that was exported from Israel some of that money ends up in the Israeli military".

Two years ago at the AGM of the World Diamond Council in Moscow, there was a draft proposal to empower the Kimberley Process by widening the definition of conflict diamonds "to include countries who flout human rights laws not just in mining areas but also in diamond trading centers". The institutes of the World Diamond Council had already confirmed the change in definition, before the President of the Israel Diamond Exchange, Shmuel Schnitzer, personally intervened to put a stop to it saying "it could be disastrous for Israel". The already agreed change in the definition of a conflict diamond was binned to shield Israel's blood diamond trade.

Israel has a long history of promoting the trade in blood diamonds. In 2000, it refused to meet with Global Witness, an NGO which works to expose the links between natural resources and human rights abuses, which was instrumental in the setting up of the Kimberley Process. Global Witness reports that Israel was the only country to ever refuse to meet to discuss the UN embargo on trade in conflict goods.

In 2014 Israel's billionaire diamond king, BSG's Beny Steinmetz ("Israel's richest man"), tried to silence Global Witness from exposing his corruption in acquiring diamond mines in Guinea. BSG (Beny Steinmetz Group) was further embroiled in scandal when it was revealed that it directly funded, through its foundation, the notorious Givati Brigade of the Israeli army. The Givati Brigade stands accused of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The Givati Brigade is responsible for the massacre of the Samouni family in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. On 4th January 2009 the Givati Brigade rounded up 100 members of the Samouni family and ordered them into the house of Wa'el Samouni. The house was then bombed, and rescue services were prevented from approaching for four days, with ambulances being fired on. When rescue workers were finally allowed access, they found buried beneath the rubble, traumatised children besides the corpses of their parents and siblings. The Givati had massacred 29 family members and in case anyone mistook their intent they left a message on one of the remaining walls of the house, daubed in Hebrew it read "The only good Arab is a dead Arab".

The Foundation’s website boasted of "adopting" a unit of the Givati brigade, of "fostering close relationships with the commanders and their soldiers", of "buying equipment " for them specifically during Operation Cast Lead, that is, during their slaughter of the Samouni family. All references were however deleted from their website once it came to public attention, and soon after BSG was rebranded as Diacore.

BSG's ( now Diacore’s) blood diamonds are sold on the high street through close partnerships with De Beers's, Tiffany's and Sotherby's Diamonds.

In 2012 the survivors of the Samouni family in a video message asked the Queen to remove De Beer's, Steinmetz crafted, Jubilee Blood Diamond from display at the Tower of London and for the people of the UK to reject diamonds processed by the Steinmetz Diamond company. This lead to six months of protests outside the Tower of London until the Tower indicated that the diamond was no longer on display.

In 2011 Global Witness, the founding force behind establishing the Kimberley Process, resigned from the Kimberley Process arguing that the Kimberley Process had failed to address "the clear links between diamonds, violence and tyranny..” that “ Nearly nine years after the Kimberley Process was launched, the sad truth is that most consumers still cannot be sure where their diamonds come from, nor whether they are financing armed violence or abusive regimes."

Inminds chair Abbas Ali said "We are here to demand the Kimberley Process be reformed to exclude all blood diamonds from the supply chain including cut and polished diamonds. Until that happens, the Kimberley Process certification is worthless, and we urge all people of conscience to boycott all diamonds unless the jeweller can produce documentation proving that every stage of the supply pipeline, from the mine; to cutting and polishing; to the trading centre; are not tainted by rogue regimes like Israel or other human rights abusers."

[ Video & more photos to follow ]

London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds (Outside Australian High Commission in London)

London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds (Outside Australian High Commission in London)

London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds (Outside Australian High Commission in London)

London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds (Outside Australian High Commission in London)

London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds (Outside Australian High Commission in London)

London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds (Outside Australian High Commission in London)

London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds (Outside Australian High Commission in London)

London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds (Outside Australian High Commission in London)

London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds (Outside Australian High Commission in London)

London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds (Outside Australian High Commission in London)

London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds (Outside Australian High Commission in London)

London Protest demands Kimberley Process stand up to Israeli Diamond Bourse and end trade in cut & polished blood diamonds (Outside Australian High Commission in London)

"[Deportation at the airport] We saw the injured [Turkish] men going through.. a lot had a leg cut out of their trousers or an arm cut out of their top. It had been cut out to treat their wounds.. they were covered in blood, blood that had been there for three days, and some of them had wounds that were still bleeding.. What upset me most was seeing the dozen men, one after another, hobbling across the terminal, with a bandaged foot. I couldn't ask them why so many of them had a bandaged foot, I couldn't ask them what had happened, because if they spoke or if any of us spoke to them the Israelis beat the injured person.. We later found out that they had these injuries on the tops of their feet from when the troops came down from the helicopter on the Mavi Marmara, and they came down firing - they had been shot from above. Some of the men that were killed were shot at close range - head and chest, but a dozen of the men who were shot, among 59 people who were shot, they were shot at the tops of their feet - the bullets were coming down.. They weren't given a wheelchair or a pair of crutches, and if any of the other passengers stood up and tried to offer [help].. that person was dragged away and smacked by these Israelis. The Israeli soldiers sat on the floor, laughed and sniggered and made every one of these Turkish men hobble and hop all the way across, some 200 metres, everyone of them, one by one, made to do that purely for the sick amusement of the Israeli soldiers."